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Virginia passes law to enforce maximum vehicle speeds for repeat speeders

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Re: Virginia passes law to enforce maximum vehicle speeds for repeat speeders

#271

Post by exsomet »

atoav wrote: post #249
dheera wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm all for stronger enforcement of speed limits to save lives (e.g. ticket everyone over the speed limit with cameras automatically, no cops needed), but requiring shit to be installed into someone's car doesn't seem effective. They could just disconnect it.

As an Hardware designer I don't think that is the problem nowadays. Make it physically hard to remove and add a gps tracker to the unit and if it doesn't move for a few days, have them proove to you it wasn't tampered with. Then the only way to do it is to break the thing open and simulate trips that match yours all the time, which requires you to MITM the connection between the GPS and the microcontroller. Aside fro…

You’re forgetting a step - which, being a hardware designer instead of a lawyer, is understandable.

The fourth amendment means that there should never be a situation where you are arbitrarily required to provide the government access to, or information about, the ways that you use or modify private property like a vehicle.

Re: Virginia passes law to enforce maximum vehicle speeds for repeat speeders

#272

Post by NewJazz »

adrr wrote: post #255
GuB-42 wrote: post #205

There are cars that can go way over 100 mph, and they almost all speed controlled by software. High performance cars are often speed limited by software to about 150 mph. How is this legal? Cars with speed limits that high belong to the track, not public roads, with a possible exception for emergency vehicles. There are some rare (emergency) situations where "superspeeding" might help, but I can think of many others…

How will my road legal car know when it’s on a track or a closed road? Some how putting a way to disable it defeats the purpose. If its GPS controlled, people will be spoofing GPS to remove the limit, just need a raspberry pie and some other components. You’ll have unintended consequences.

You could have steeper penalties for people who use those types of systems and then go on to get into accidents and kill people. I don't think first degree murder is beyond reason for someone who installs a defeater device and drives at 100 mph and kills someone.

Re: Virginia passes law to enforce maximum vehicle speeds for repeat speeders

#273

Post by steveBK123 »

Good. The pandemic really opened up roads in the US to ever more dangerous Wild Wild West shenanigans.

Traffic laws are one of those situations where the right and left politically accidentally land on the same outcome (via different paths) - near zero enforcement.

In many cases we have the technology to solve these things and laws already there if we wanted to actually enforce them.

It’s incredibly jarring returning to NYC after a week in Tokyo and realizing how insane our roads & highways are.

Re: Virginia passes law to enforce maximum vehicle speeds for repeat speeders

#274

Post by NewJazz »

duped wrote: post #253
blendo wrote: post #152

I’ve seen cars improve a lot over that last 10-20 years. Faster, smoother, quieter, and safer, they can cruise all day at 80-90 mph. Sadly, this is completely incompatible with 25 mph city speed limits. Thus, the need for engineering kludges like automotive speed limiters. I’d really like a new vehicle classification, perhaps along the lines of Medium Speed Electric Vehicles. Designed with a top speed of 40 to 45 mph…

My hybrid SUV halves its mileage over 40-45 mph which is enough incentive for me not to be a maniac. I treat the average mpg as a game, trying to maximize it for my driving pattern. Sucks when I have long stretches on the highway though.

Even on the highway you can take comfort in the fact that someone passing you at 90 while you go 65 or 70 is getting way worse mileage than you.

Or you can shake your head at the world.

Re: Virginia passes law to enforce maximum vehicle speeds for repeat speeders

#275

Post by steveBK123 »

exsomet wrote: post #271
atoav wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an Hardware designer I don't think that is the problem nowadays. Make it physically hard to remove and add a gps tracker to the unit and if it doesn't move for a few days, have them proove to you it wasn't tampered with. Then the only way to do it is to break the thing open and simulate trips that match yours all the time, which requires you to MITM the connection between the GPS and the microcontroller. Aside fro…

You’re forgetting a step - which, being a hardware designer instead of a lawyer, is understandable. The fourth amendment means that there should never be a situation where you are arbitrarily required to provide the government access to, or information about, the ways that you use or modify private property like a vehicle.

Maybe. But driving is not a constitutional right.

Break the law enough and you can be provided two options - revocation of license or installation of limiter.

Re: Virginia passes law to enforce maximum vehicle speeds for repeat speeders

#276

Post by gpm »

dheera wrote: post #240
allenrb wrote: post #224

Speed limiters built into cars. Anti-infringement technology built into general-purpose computers. And yet, guns and ammo freely available and unrestricted outside of automatic weapons and the like? Yeah. Can’t wait to move off-grid someday. (Yes, obviously American) I’ve got enough sense to keep it slow and safe in populated areas, yet occasionally open it up elsewhere when conditions are right. Guess that’s another…

I'm all for stronger enforcement of speed limits to save lives (e.g. ticket everyone over the speed limit with cameras automatically, no cops needed), but requiring shit to be installed into someone's car doesn't seem effective. They could just disconnect it.

This device doesn't make it easier to catch speeders, what it does is give a way for habitual speeders to stop speeding. The primary goal is no doubt that these people will simply stop breaking the law now that there's a device there helping them do that without the need for further law enforcement. To the extent that fails though, it's a measure which makes it reasonable to increase penalties and thus increase the level of deterrence.

Increasing penalties for speeding without this device has issues. It's basically impossible to prove that you intended to break the law, and that you didn't just misjudge your speed. Worse there's become a culture of mildly breaking the law, and it's even harder to prove you intentionally went beyond what's acceptable in that culture. There's a reasonable doubt that it was a honest mistake. This makes it politically, legally, and morally problematic to have significant penalties attached to speeding.

But if you're caught speeding because you disabled the device that a court ordered installed to prevent you from speeding, all worries about intent go out the window. It is, beyond a reasonable doubt, a deliberate violation of the law. Not the actions of a well intentioned person who was in a hurry and bad at judging their speed. This means that, relative to speeding, penalties can be significant increased resulting in better deterrence.

Specifically it looks like Virginia's new law makes it a "class 1 misdemeanor", which is the harshest class of misdemeanor in Virginia law, and the same as a DWI or simple assault. Sentencing maximums are a bit deceptive because they typically aren't what are assigned, but theoretically punishable by up to a year of confinement.

Re: Virginia passes law to enforce maximum vehicle speeds for repeat speeders

#277

Post by dreamcompiler »

GuB-42 wrote: post #205

There are cars that can go way over 100 mph, and they almost all speed controlled by software. High performance cars are often speed limited by software to about 150 mph. How is this legal? Cars with speed limits that high belong to the track, not public roads, with a possible exception for emergency vehicles. There are some rare (emergency) situations where "superspeeding" might help, but I can think of many others…

> with a possible exception for emergency vehicles

Ambulance and fire truck driver here. There's no good reason for emergency vehicles to ever go much faster than the speed limit, and we would experience life-changing amounts of personal liability if our driving got someone hurt.

While it's sometimes important to get a patient to the hospital as quickly as possible, that's less frequent than you might think, and it's always more important to get them there in one piece.

In addition our vehicles are heavy and they don't stop quickly, so physics is another good reason for us not to speed.

Police cars might be another story but my personal opinion is that speeding police cars probably don't create a net benefit for public safety either.

Re: Virginia passes law to enforce maximum vehicle speeds for repeat speeders

#278

Post by NewJazz »

blendo wrote: post #152

I’ve seen cars improve a lot over that last 10-20 years. Faster, smoother, quieter, and safer, they can cruise all day at 80-90 mph. Sadly, this is completely incompatible with 25 mph city speed limits. Thus, the need for engineering kludges like automotive speed limiters. I’d really like a new vehicle classification, perhaps along the lines of Medium Speed Electric Vehicles. Designed with a top speed of 40 to 45 mph…

Why restrict it there? If you up it to 65 or 70, far more freeways become accessible. Maybe not in crazy ass 85 mph speed limit Texas, but that ain't my problem (luckily).

Re: Virginia passes law to enforce maximum vehicle speeds for repeat speeders

#279

Post by atoav »

exsomet wrote: post #271
atoav wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an Hardware designer I don't think that is the problem nowadays. Make it physically hard to remove and add a gps tracker to the unit and if it doesn't move for a few days, have them proove to you it wasn't tampered with. Then the only way to do it is to break the thing open and simulate trips that match yours all the time, which requires you to MITM the connection between the GPS and the microcontroller. Aside fro…

You’re forgetting a step - which, being a hardware designer instead of a lawyer, is understandable. The fourth amendment means that there should never be a situation where you are arbitrarily required to provide the government access to, or information about, the ways that you use or modify private property like a vehicle.

No I did not forget it, I was responding to an technical argument with an technical answer. And I am the type of person who wouldn't design such a system if you held a gun up to my head.

Of course there is a legal layer to this as well. But given how the US legal system treats other constitutional rights that ought to be valid for everybody on American soil at the moment, I thought I'd skip that for now, because apparently something being a constitutional right doesn't make it so.

Re: Virginia passes law to enforce maximum vehicle speeds for repeat speeders

#280

Post by ang_cire »

shermantanktop wrote: post #267
allenrb wrote: post #224

Speed limiters built into cars. Anti-infringement technology built into general-purpose computers. And yet, guns and ammo freely available and unrestricted outside of automatic weapons and the like? Yeah. Can’t wait to move off-grid someday. (Yes, obviously American) I’ve got enough sense to keep it slow and safe in populated areas, yet occasionally open it up elsewhere when conditions are right. Guess that’s another…

I’ve never met a person taking high risk actions who thinks they are unqualified to do so. But they always think some other people are.

This is generally true for actions at every level of risk. Designing around how humans will actually behave is better than trying to artificially restrict everyone's behavior preemptively.
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